John Ganz

Wanted to take revenge against a lot of people we felt had not stuck with him through his hard times and turned on him.

The 80s was a great boom time for Trump.

That comes to an end at the end of the 80s.

And he sticks with a lot of the same ideas.

preoccupations, urban crime.

You know, urban crime is on the decline, but that's an obsession for Trump.

You know, if you go back to this era, this is the era where Japan, South Korea, and at that time, West Germany, their imports, you know, were very competitive with American manufacturers.

And there was a current of opinion, which Trump was, you know, shared, which is that, you know, we need to protect domestic industries.

And I think that basically Trump

is also in this kind of late Cold War period where those under our protective umbrella are now becoming our competitors.

You see it also in his attitude towards immigration.

The Reagan administration was fairly liberal on immigration, but there was a current of opinion that started to get more and more paranoid or hostile that immigrants were harming the national substance of the United States or taking up resources.

I think his obsession with Russia has to do with his notion that Russia is still a power on par with the Soviet Union.

You know, this is also he's very obsessed with this summit diplomacy that he must have seen Gorbachev and Reagan engaging in and the pomp and circumstance with it.

So his idea of Russia is just, well, you know, these are the Soviets.

We need to treat them with respect and so on and so forth.

And that suits Russia just fine because that's exactly how they want to be perceived.

I also think that Trump,

finds Putin's mode of government to be appealing.

I think that he likes his way of doing things.